A heartbreaking true story of a woman's struggle to escape her past and the price her family paid

Author: Irene Kelly,Jennifer Kelly,Matt Kelly

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

ISBN: 1447291522

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: N.A

View: 6461

Irene Kelly was brought up in poverty and abused by her mammy from an early age. But home life was still better than the time she spent in one of Dublin's industrial orphanages. In that harsh regime she was beaten and sexually assaulted. Set to work in the nursery, she saw the nuns treat the babies with horrifying cruelty. As an adult those experiences haunted Irene. When she fell in love with Matt, who was fighting his own demons, they moved to England for a new start. They wanted their daughter Jennifer to have a better life, but in trying to protect her by hiding their past they only succeeded in pushing her away. Until, one day, Irene had a phone call from Ireland that changed everything . . . Sins of the Mother is a powerful and inspiring story of a family whose love was tested but never broken, who finally found the strength to heal the past.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

Two different lives, one heartbreaking secret When Phyllis Whitsell was just eight months old, her mother died of tuberculosis. At least, that what’s Phyllis grew up being told by her adoptive parents. But Phyllis never believed it was true. She prayed every night for God to take care of her birth mother, holding onto the hope that she was alive and out there, somewhere. Finally, after years of searching, Phyllis finds her birth mother-Bridget, known locally as Tipperary Mary. But the loving reunion Phyllis had hoped for is complicated by a difficult past. The mother she discovers is a broken woman-a victim of early onset dementia, an alcoholic, and a woman crushed by years of missing the daughter she gave up. Phyllis, by this time a community nurse with her own children, keeps the discovery from her family. She begins to care for Bridget-visiting her at home, buying her new clothes, tending to her maladies and giving her as much love as she can. All the while, Phyllis struggles with telling Bridget her true identity. And when she eventually introduces her son to his grandmother, Bridget doesn’t believe her. Bridget never fully understands that her tender new caregiver is the daughter she lost so long ago. My Secret Mother is the extraordinary story of forgiveness and compassion, as a daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey from abandonment into love.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

In 1963, London was on the brink of becoming one of the world's most vibrant cities. Angela Patrick was 19 years old, enjoying her first job working in the City, when her life turned upside down. A brief fling with a charismatic charmer left her pregnant, unmarried and facing a stark future. Being under 21, she was still under the governance of her parents, strict Catholics who insisted she have the baby in secret and then put it up for adoption. Shunned by her family and forced to leave her job, Angela was sent to an imposing-looking convent for unmarried mothers in north-east London. Run like a Victorian workhouse, conditions in the convent were decidedly Spartan. Vilified and degraded by the nuns for her 'wickedness', her only comfort came from the other pregnant girls, all knowing they too would have to give up their babies. After a terrifying labour with no pain relief, Angela gave birth to a beautiful son, Paul, with whom she fell instantly in love. At eight weeks he was taken from her and forcibly put up for adoption, leaving Angela bereft and heartbroken. Not a day went by without Angela thinking about him. Then, thirty years later, she received a letter. It was from Paul, and a reunion was arranged. This vital slice of social history is a shocking reminder of how cultural mores have changed around the issue of single motherhood since the early 1960s. It is also an honest, heartfelt memoir that explores the closest of human bonds.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

The True Story of the Brutal Texas Murder That Destroyed a Family, Restored One Mans Faith, and Shocked a Nation

Author: Terry Caffey

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

ISBN: 9781414335339

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 288

View: 2614

At 3:00 a.m. on March 1, 2008, Terry Caffey awoke to find his daughter’s boyfriend standing in his bedroom with a gun. An instant later the teen opened fire, killing Terry’s wife, his two sons, and wounding him 12 times, before setting the house ablaze. Terry fell into deep depression and planned to kill himself, but God intervened. Upon visiting his burned-out property, Terry noticed a scorched scrap of paper from one of his wife’s books leaning against a tree trunk. The page read: “[God,] I couldn’t understand why You would take my family and leave me behind to struggle along without them. And I guess I still don’t totally understand that part of it. But I do believe that You’re sovereign; You’re in control.” That page was like a direct message from God, and it turned Terry’s life around. Now, one year later, Terry is remarried, the adoptive father of two young sons, and working to rebuild his relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, who is currently serving two life sentences in a Texas state penitentiary for her involvement in the crimes. Terror by Night tells the compelling story of how Terry Caffey found peace after his wife and sons were brutally murdered and his teenage daughter implicated in the crime. Sharing never-before-told details about the night of the crime and subsequent murder trial, it explains how Terry was able to forgive the men who murdered his family, and how he even interceded with the prosecutors on their behalf. A powerful example of how the power of forgiveness can bring healing after tragedy and great loss, it shows how God can bring good out of even the darkest tragedies.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

'I entered Goldenbridge orphanage in my Communion outfit. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing there.' At age seven, Bernadette Fahy was delivered with her three brothers to Goldenbridge Orphanage. She was to stay there until she was sixteen. Goldenbridge has come to represent some of the worst aspects of childrearing practices in Ireland of the 1950s and 1960s. Seen as the offspring of people who had strayed from social respectability and religious standards, these children were made to pay for the 'sins' of their parents. Bernadette tells of the pain, fear, hunger, hard labour and isolation experienced in the orphanage. Can a person recover from such a childhood? How does the spirit ever take flight -- and gain the 'freedom of angels'? This is Bernadette Fahy's concern. Now trained and working as a counsellor, she has had to dig deeply into her past to understand the patterns laid down by her upbringing. She has had to rebuild her life, and now she helps others to do the same. This book is a story of triumph over the harshest of circumstances.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

On 19 February 2013 the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny apologized to the women who had been incarcerated in Ireland's Magdalene laundries. In the audience sat Steven O'Riordan, a documentary filmmaker and founder of the Magdalene Survivors Together group. And by his side were some of the women he had helped. Nancy, Kathleen, Diane, Marie and Marina were confined in Magdalene laundries throughout Ireland during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The physical and psychological abuse they suffered at the institutions, run on behalf of the State, led to a lifetime of shame and secrecy. Inspirational and moving, these women tell their stories for the first time.
Posted in Adoption

The powerful story of two sisters separated at birth, one abused and one loved, and their search to understand their past. Helen grew up in a pit village in Tyneside in the post-war years, with her gran, aunties and uncles living nearby. She felt safe with them, but they could not protect her from her neglectful mother and violent father. Behind closed doors, she suffered years of abuse. Sometimes she talked to an imaginary sister, the only one who understood her pain. Jenny was adopted at six weeks and grew up in Newcastle. An only child, she knew she was loved, and with the support of her parents she went on to become a golfing champion, but still she felt that something was missing... Neither woman knew of the other's existence until, in her fifties, Jenny went looking for her birth family and found her sister Helen. Together they searched for the truth about Jenny's birth - and uncovered a legacy of secrets that overturned everything Helen thought she knew about her family. Happily, they also discovered that they were not just sisters, they were twins. Inspirational and moving, this is the story of two women brave enough to confront their past, and strong enough to let love not bitterness define them.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

Coming Out, Then Coming Home Christopher Yuan, the son of Chinese immigrants, discovered at an early age that he was different. He was attracted to other boys. As he grew into adulthood, his mother, Angela, hoped to control the situation. Instead, she found that her son and her life were spiraling out of control—and her own personal demons were determined to defeat her. Years of heartbreak, confusion, and prayer followed before the Yuans found a place of complete surrender, which is God's desire for all families. Their amazing story, told from the perspectives of both mother and son, offers hope for anyone affected by homosexuality. God calls all who are lost to come home to him. Casting a compelling vision for holy sexuality, Out of a Far Country speaks to prodigals, parents of prodigals, and those wanting to minister to the gay community. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” - Luke 15:20 Includes a discussion guide for personal reflection and group use.
Posted in Religion

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Posted in Antiques & Collectibles

The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How Tuam 800 Became a Global Scandal

Author: Paul Jude Redmond

Publisher: Merrion Press

ISBN: 1785371797

Category: History

Page: 303

View: 1846

MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of most 800 babies in the ‘Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised nation, and lead to a Commission of Inquiry. In The Adoption Machine, Paul Jude Redmond, Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Homes Survivors, who himself was born in the Castlepollard Home, candidly reveals the shocking history of one of the worst abuses of Church power since the foundation of the Irish State. From Bessboro, Castlepollard, and Sean Ross Abbey to St. Patrick’s and Tuam, a dark shadow was cast by the collusion between Church and State in the systematic repression of women and the wilful neglect of illegitimate babies, resulting in the deaths of thousands. It was Paul’s exhaustive research that widened the global media’s attention to all the homes and revealed Tuam as just the tip of the iceberg of the horrors that lay beneath. He further reveals the vast profits generated by selling babies to wealthy adoptive parents, and details how infants were volunteered to a pharmaceutical company for drug trials without the consent of their natural mothers. Interwoven throughout is Paul’s poignant and deeply personal journey of discovery as he attempts to find his own natural mother. The Adoption Machine exposes this dark history of Ireland’s shameful and secret past, and the efforts to bring it into the light. It is a history from which there is no turning away.
Posted in History

In 1946, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Dolan walked up the path to the front door of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Alone and pregnant, she was following in the footsteps of more than a century’s worth of lost souls. Shunned by society for her sins and offered no comfort for her pain, Bridget gave birth to a boy, John, who died at the home in a horrendous state of neglect less than two years later. Her second child was once again delivered into the care of the nuns and was taken from her, never to be seen or heard from again. She would go on to marry a wonderful man and have a daughter, Anna Corrigan, but it was only after Bridget’s death that Anna discovered she had two brothers her mother had never spoken about. In the aftermath of the explosive revelations that the remains of 796 babies had been found in a septic tank on the site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, she became compelled to try and find out if her baby brothers’ remains were among them. Here, Anna and Alison O’Reilly piece together the erased chapter of the life of Bridget Dolan and her forgotten sons, reminding us that we must never forget what was done to the women and children of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.
Posted in Biography & Autobiography

For over 13 years, Frances Reilly experienced institutionalized cruelty at the hands of the nuns of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth Convent in Belfast. Writing with honesty and integrity, Reilly presents a moving account of her childhood suffering and her resolution to survive the tortures of her life.
Posted in Abused children

Sheila Tofield tells her moving true story about being a single mother in 1950s Britain, in The Unmarried Mother. 'A searing, honest testimony' Lesley Pearse Sheila grew up in Rotherham, the daughter of an uncaring mother who made her believe she was useless, stupid and - most painfully of all - unlovable. As a young woman, her worst childhood fears were confirmed when her fiancé broke off their engagement without an explanation. Heartbroken and vulnerable, Sheila was easy prey to the worst type of man - a man who turned his back on her when she told him she was carrying his child. In Fifties Britain, an unmarried, pregnant girl received,not sympathy but censure and contempt. Shunned by most of her family, Sheila ended up in a Church of England home for unmarried mothers, with no apparent alternative than to give up her child for adoption. But when she held her newborn daughter in her arms for the first time, Sheila knew she had to do the unthinkable: bring up her baby on her own in a society that would condemn her for it. Sheila Tofield is a proud grandmother living in Chichester and The Unmarried Mother is her first book. Her touching story was picked up by Penguin when she entered the hugely successful life story competition with Saga Magazine.
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